Millennia ago, in the Fertile Crescent, the land nestled between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now present-day Iran, the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer arose. Sumerians ...

Twitter users are attempting to decipher an ancient Sumerian joke that involves a dog who — you guessed it — walks into a bar. The @dephsofwikipedia Twitter account shares random interesting and weird ...

All that’s left today of an ancient boat discovered in 2018 in what was formerly Uruk is the bitumen, black tar that once coated its framework of reeds, palm leaves, or wood. That fragile organic ...

UMM AL-AJARIB, Iraq — Iraqi archeologists are striving to bring to light what they describe as Mesopotamia’s largest “city of graves,” where the Sumerians buried their dead nearly 5,000 years ago. The ...

The realm of artificial intelligence (AI) has been making considerable strides in the field of language translation, particularly with ancient languages. The latest feat in this realm is the ...

Picking one period or dynasty to represent the entirety of this era was far too difficult. So I’ve decided that I will be dedicating two blog posts to Near Eastern art. Today’s blog post will be ...

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has returned an ancient Sumerian sculpture to Iraq following an internal review by the institution, which recently appointed a head of provenance ...

Learn how the first civilization in Mesopotamia depended on tides and how it responded when faced with a major environmental challenge. Jack Knudson is an assistant editor for Discover Magazine who ...

A newly analyzed cuneiform hymn accompanied a drinking song dedicated to a female tavern-keeper Peter Smith Soak grain in water and a seed begins to sprout. Dry out that tiny protoplant, or acrospire, ...